


Domestic Bliss

by brokenmemento



Category: Madre Solo Hay Dos | Daughter From Another Mother (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, Post Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:35:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29120568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento
Summary: Ana had known the second that Mariana had walked off that she had made a mistake. Pride makes her sit on that mistake for a month. Love catapults her into action on day 32.
Relationships: Ana Servín/Mariana Herrera
Comments: 40
Kudos: 243





	1. The After, The Beginning, and Gestures One and Two

**Author's Note:**

> *Forgive me for any errors I may have committed when playing around with the Spanish. I am but a humble Texan lady who had three years of Spanish in high school and one in college, but in no way can I claim any type of fluency. I just fell in love with Ana and Mariana and had to put something together while my heart was feeling so much emotion about them both.

The first time she becomes aware of her existence, she’s breathing heavy and screaming. _It’s funny how life has a way of repeating itself_ , Ana thinks, as she’s been alternating between the two again.

This was never supposed to happen. Rather, she’s sure she’s the one who set this rather confusing and somehow staggeringly delightful chain of events into motion in the first place. Because what woman asks another to come live in her house when she can’t let go of a baby she fell in love with and when she’s having to learn to love her own?

That is what was supposed to happen. Ana was meant to fall in love with Valentina while continuing to love Regina. Nowhere in the linear pattern of life was she to develop a sense of comfort with Mariana, to come to think of her as an extension of herself and the life she was living. The Ana before would not have done this. The Ana now cannot fathom anything else. 

But before any of this, before anything that’s happening right this second, both she and Mariana had some things to trudge through. Because before the greatest joy in her life, there has also been the greatest heartbreak. 

——//——

The beginning should really be a blur, but Ana remembers everything with stark clarity. From the moment her water broke to the second she’s sitting in the car, begging a woman she cannot stand to show up with a child that isn’t hers so she can just smell the scent of her sweet little head again.

The ache of not having Regina in her life is unbearable. Like having the most beautiful thing growing inside you, to have it flower, and then have someone else come and rip it down and away with their hands. No part of it left behind. Simply gone like it was never there at all.

And even though Valentina (Dear Lord, that name she’s given her) was very much someone Ana knew for nine months, forty weeks and sharing a space, the little girl isn’t a soul she knows now. To think they were together longer than they’ve been apart and yet, they’ve lost one another completely in the weeks that have built up. 

She doesn’t know how to stifle Valentina’s cry, barely understands how to make her look at her with anything other than consternation or pleading eyes that somehow seem to say, _Please give me back to my true Mama._

So the car happens and she’s asking Mariana to come to live in her too-big house and join her too-perfect life because somehow, getting to have Regina back far outweighs the fact that the frustrating girl will be following not far behind.

Ana can do this. She absolutely can. 

...it’s just the everything after that presents itself. 

The series of ‘never-would’s’ become ‘never-should-have’s’ and ‘never-beginnings’ turn into ‘never-endings’ in Ana’s mind. In her heart. 

Mariana, like Ana’s own daughter, goes from being someone who is frustrating at best and downright resolve shattering at worst, to changing into something Ana will never fully understand. 

Not because she lacks empathy and love in her heart but simply because she never knew her chest could expand the way that it does as time goes on. Isn’t there only supposed to be enough for Juan Carlos? (The other two children, obviously) 

Mariana begins the spiral, the start of Ana’s out of control life. Ana is so caught up in the spinning that she cannot grab hold of the life she’s got left on the sides. Somewhere along the way, she finds out she doesn’t want to. 

Ana had a rage-inducing woman next to her when she was trying to breathe through contractions. Ana has had her child switched at birth. Ana can’t make her own child love her so she asks the woman her child does love to move in. Ana finds out that Mariana has a maybe girlfriend. Ana has an affair. Ana may have cancer. Ana eats mushrooms and kisses Mariana to avoid the life waiting for her (or what might be left of it).

So yes, it’s her fault. She should have known that pressing her lips to the younger woman would set off other things she couldn’t control. Like her own heart lurching in her chest because in those seconds she’s holding on for dear life, nothing else exists except Mariana. 

There is no Daniel and no Juan Carlos and when Ana’s mouth latches on and stays, she can just think through the haze of her high that this might be who she is too. Someone who begins to get pesky feelings for women she used to not like so much. To imagine a life without her, to imagine life gone completely, and not having Mariana’s big brown eyes telling her it’s all going to be alright. 

The kiss does Ana no favors. It does Mariana a lot. 

What Ana has come to learn is that what she can blame on dying, on drugs, on a coinciding bump on the head, Mariana takes as being a sliver of hope, of maybe not bouncing from place to place with nowhere safe to land. 

Ana represents something Mariana never trusted to exist and something she didn’t intend to find. Something she can’t help but tumble into a messy amalgam of feelings that she comes to think of as love. 

Not _te quiero mucho._ Not even _te amo_ like Ana had (foolishly?) said. 

_Estoy enamorada de ti._

Well, then. No mistaking that. But Ana hadn’t known how to respond inside of her own hurt, it being too heavy to process what Marianna was saying. Her own response is such a knee-jerk reaction that she’s pretty sure she will never forget the look in Mariana’s eyes. 

_Un mes para siempre_. A month ago, one that has stretched on to eternity. 

Ana has lost count of how many times she’s stared down at her phone, how many times her finger has hovered over Mariana’s number. But she hasn’t. That doesn’t mean she’s let go though. Not for even a second. 

She’s taken the car out, mostly late, when she’ll only get an eyebrow raise from one of the help instead of the whole house. Pablo’s had been first but that had turned up a dead end. Another woman slipped in and out. Not the one Ana wanted to see. 

Despite what Juan Carlos has done, despite his mistress and Regina’s abuelita, Ana finds herself sitting outside of where she’s heard Teresa and Mariana might be staying. She isn’t sure though. 

The curtains are closed and a soft light glows within. Ana is stationary an exorbitant amount of time sitting in wait—for what, she does not know. 

After a while, a figure walks in front, a silhouette of darkness in the light. Ana can’t help the way Valentina’s snores in her car seat narrow to imperceptibility or the way her own hands grip her steering wheel. Her heart dances in her own chest, dreaming. 

_Mi corazón._

That thought wafts through too. Almost startles Ana with the clarity at which it presents itself. Because, she supposes, she’s a little bit in love too.

The reason becomes starker the longer she sits. No one does what she has, no one writes their life the way Ana has these last few months if it’s not a love story in the making. 

For so many reasons, Ana comes to a decision that night in the car, staring at what may or may not be the form of Mariana in the window: she’s going to get her back. Get them both. Mariana and Regina. 

The light flicks off, the darkness takes over. 

“Buenas noches,” Ana finds herself whispering. Because even if that isn’t Mariana, she wants her to have a good night—wherever she is.

——//——

Ana isn’t sure what to say to Mariana the first time they see one another again. 

_Sorry for breaking your heart_ is a little too on the nose because her own doesn’t feel like it’s worked quite right in four weeks. Ana taps a nail against the kitchen counter and stares off into space.

With Juan Carlos, he had pursued her. She’d had to do little to win him twenty years ago because the part of her that is a tad bit vain knew she was a good catch for him and he could be for her if she’d work her mind around it. They’d proven they could withstand two decades. 

But year twenty-one proved to be too much for a lot of reasons, and now Ana is contemplating how to woo someone who wasn’t around for one the almost four that Ana has lived. That thought makes her sigh. Well, the fact that Mariana is barely into her twenties (and Ana pushing forty) and that she’s never had to woo someone in her entire life. 

Mariana has a birthday coming up, Ana knows. It’s notated in her phone’s calendar. She supposes she can start there. 

Ana is not daft in her thinking, knows that a phone call would probably go a lot farther than things, but it’s the language Ana knows to speak and so she spends hours perusing arrangement after vase of flowers. 

By now, she knows where Mariana is. Where she’s staying and that she picked classes back up at the school. To be a mathematician. 

Ana raises her eyebrows and shakes her head. How wrongly she had pegged Mariana. Those doe eyes and that innocence had parted to reveal a woman whom Ana found herself irrevocably drawn to.

Perhaps she’s a masochist, perhaps a hopeless sad sack who has lost her way, but she makes sure to be available when Mariana finishes her class, to be watching when the beautifully wrapped red carnations (Ana didn’t choose them because of price. She could have bought a thousand other options. The meaning behind them is what matters) get put into Mariana’s hand.

Ana also could have written a thousand different things on the card included— _soy una idiota, perdóname, por favor_ —but she had gone for none of those things. _Vienes a casa_. Come home. That’s what she’s gone with. 

Mariana’s face screws up in confusion, then her eyes register what has happened, and she starts to scan the area. Ana ducks in her seat because she’s decidedly less ready to confront Mariana this way than at her door. 

Thankfully, (or not) Mariana doesn’t catch her overly priced car sitting in the parking lot, but Ana absolutely does catch her purchase going in a trash receptacle. If it were possible to sink lower in her European leather seats, she would. 

Ana should have expected this though. It’s what she deserves after Mariana had uncovered a part of herself and Ana’s only response was to tell her to leave the life they’d all built together. 

Improbably, she sinks lower and bites at her thumb. _Another never._ She’ll just have to do better next time.

By the time she formulates her next plan and rises to start the car, Mariana is long gone. The next act of love is not. 

It follows Ana to bed and it keeps her tossing and turning. It has her skirting her hands lower but, no, she cannot. _Aún no._ She must wait for what may yet come. 

If Ana wants this to be a love story, she must do what is needed to make it such. Mariana will come home with Regina, Ana will get to tell her what feelings have been bubbling up since even before Ana had thought she might be dying.

Which is another thing that propels Ana to keep her hand away—she’s got time. While still not exactly sure how long she’s got left, she knows she doesn’t have to draw up papers to plan for her eventual death (now later rather than sooner) because she’s not _dying_ and she can afford to spend the hours and days showing Mariana she is capable of loving her and their daughters until her own blissful end.

Rodrigo and Cecí might not understand it, but Ana is almost sure of their ability to adapt. Cecí is more concerned with her own teenage life than to worry about whom her mother takes into her heart (or her bed because _oh_ , how she wants that too) As for Rodrigo, Ana is fairly certain that he’s just as in love with Mariana as she is.

Ana spends the next day after work picking out what comes next. She doesn’t hold out any stops, picks out the delicate ‘V’ and ‘R’ letters with twin bauble birthstones dangling from the golden chain. 

_For someone special?_ the woman at the counter asks as she places it in a box and begins to wrap it up. 

_The one becoming my whole world_ , Ana finds herself confessing like she’s in the church and sitting on the other side of a priest. It startles her a little how easily it comes out, how easily she smiles. So much that her cheeks hurt as she thinks about the way this will look on Mariana’s wrist. 

Ana leaves the jewelry store, heedless of the woman’s eyes and smile fixed on her, gripping the bag with all her might. She doesn’t even care that she’s used the card she shares with Juan Carlos either because she makes money too, so what does it matter if suddenly a couple of thousand dollars are now out of their joint account?

Maybe when he’d left a month ago, she had entertained the idea of asking him to stay. But Mariana had also kissed her the day before and even though she had been hurt by Mariana, (and also falling for her) she was incensed by Juan Carlos.

She’s either incredibly bold or incredibly stupid when she knocks on the door of Mariana’s (temporary, just temporary) apartment because Ana knows Teresa is there. And while she can’t exactly stand her face, she also knows she loves the woman’s daughter more than she hates the woman, so that wins out.

Teresa, to put it mildly, is not exactly happy to see her. In fact, she mirrors as such, snipping out that Mariana isn’t home, that she has a late class on Thursdays. Which Ana already knows. That’s why she is here. 

“If you’d just give this to her,” Ana tells her, lacking her elegantly flowing Spanish speech that she tends to have most of the time. She’s nervous. 

She motions to Teresa’s hand, who looks dubious. Finally, Teresa relents, looking rather put out and holds out a palm. Ana places the long box in it, ducks her head to avoid Teresa’s wide eyes and corresponding gasp. 

“Ana…”

And Teresa doesn’t get to call her that, doesn’t get to act like they know one another even if they share a granddaughter in a less than conventional way. Ana shakes her head, cuts Teresa off. 

“It’s nothing,” she waves absently, well aware that what she’s saying isn’t exactly true. 

As if to prove that infuriating traits run in the family, Teresa pops the lid with a squeak, and Ana can’t help but let out a snort of derision as she looks out at the setting sun and places her hands on her hips. 

“ _Ay dios mío_ ,” Teresa mutters. 

Ana gesticulates with her hands, eventually snaps the box close almost on Teresa’s fingers. “Give it to her?”

Teresa swallows and nods and Ana knows she will have to let that be enough. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and relaxes her shoulders a bit. “Okay then.” 

She spins on a heel and walks back to her car. She doesn’t turn around to meet the look Teresa is burning in the back of her. 

Minutes turn to hours. Ana cannot tear herself away from her phone that never rings. Maybe that night, she holds Valentina a little bit closer, hugs her a little bit harder. She wishes her daughter could infuse her with all of the essence that Mariana has put into her. But after a month, whatever Mariana may have left behind is long gone. 

Ana doesn’t have to be a psychic to know that Valentina misses her too. She’s sure they both fall asleep that way in the rocking chair, missing the ones who aren’t there. The ones who make both their hearts fill with joy.


	2. Gestures Three and Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Not sure if any native Spanish speakers or residents of Mexico are reading my story. Once again, I want to apologize if I’m messing anything up.  
> **The poem Ana writes to Mariana is an except from “Tonight I Write the Saddest Lines” by Pablo Neruda. His poems are just *chefs kiss*

Ana tries not to think about how she might have tipped her hand too early, done too much at once. The bracelet with the girl's names on it had been...a lot. 

Standing in that shop two days ago though (now an excruciating forty-eight hours) she’d known the second she had seen the individual pieces, the chain, that Mariana’s wrist needed to carry it to carry the girls with her always. 

Ana sits on the edge of the bed, the morning sun filtering through her window. The pale orange of it dances across the freckled flesh of her shoulders, exposed from the night tank she’s wearing. It’s warm and nice, but Ana doesn’t feel it extend to inside her. Mariana has not called.

She flicks the sheet back and forth, right leg drawn up close to her body. The first two gestures had been typical romance gestures, all about meaning yes, but the flash of them had been there too. 

Nearby, Valentina starts to cry. Ana looks over at the empty space in her bed and lets out a heavy breath. It’s Juan Carlos’s weekend with the baby, so she must make the preparations for that. Rising, she pads barefoot into the baby’s room and looks down at her in her crib. 

“Hola, mija. Buenas dias,” Ana coos to the little one. This is who her attention should be focused on. This is who she should be devoting her time to and yet...yet—all she can think about is Regina’s face. Of how much she loves it and all of her. Of Mariana’s. Of how much the feeling is the same. 

“I should have never told her to leave,” Ana whispers to Valentina. “Then they would be here.” She sighs. “She’s missing so much.” 

Days passing. Does Mariana not feel the ache of absence acutely like Ana does? Valentina gurgles but offers nothing in the way of confirmation, latching on a chubby set of fingers to Ana’s own. She can’t help the smile that forms despite what she feels pulling her under. The soft noises from Valentina serve as bolstering to Ana’s undertaking.

Her smile fades. “But what if she didn’t?” The thought lances, sticking like an arrow in her mind and heart. 

Ana glances at the clock. Juan Carlos is due within the hour and then it’s a weekend full of quiet stillness. Ana tries to shake the feeling loose and lifts Valentina up into her arms.

——//——

That evening, after Valentina is well into her time with her father, Ana skims the shelf for what she’s looking for. 

It’s been years since many of the bindings were touched at all, her life so busy and tied up with work that she has failed to rake her fingers across them for a long time. 

Finally, her eyes land on the one she’s been thinking of. They hover there, debating. She waffles on the idea a bit. Growling a little, she pulls it out. 

The pages are worn, curling. Well read and well loved. Ana smiles. It’s another thing about her that very few know, save for Juan Carlos. He’d teased the way she’d latched onto the words when they were younger, given her critique for liking a Chilean, and a poet at that. 

“You want poetry? Read Octavio Paz,” he had waved around dismissively. “If you’re bent on reading that stuff anyway. Honestly, Ana.”

But she had cherished the words, fallen for the language of it when she’d had to take a literature course in college, the one random requirement in a line of business.

Ana flips through idly at first but then finds what she’s looking for. Before she knows it, her vision is going blurry and she has to reach up a hand to bat away the pesky intruder. Perhaps perusing _20 poemas de amor y una cancíon desesperada_ isn’t the best choice considering her fragile emotional state, but it is more of what she’s trying to say without having it come out of her own mouth. 

All afternoon and well into the night, Ana works on finding pictures of the girls, pictures of herself and Mariana, of the life they’ve been living for the last nine months. With each one, it brings forth something that leaves her wrung out by the end—a laugh, a cry, some deep to the bone ache or top of the ceiling joy. 

When she’s done with the book, she writes out a portion of the poem in her own delicate and looping script, signing her name at the end. Both get put in a box and tied with a flowing bow.

This time, she lets it be delivered. She cannot bear to see something she’s so painstakingly put together either tossed or discarded. She can only hope that this time, it is enough. 

On Mariana’s doorstep, it awaits. Inside, the words Ana has chosen to match her own heart. A tale of loss, of wanting without end, of always searching and finding little solace. 

_Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche,_ it begins.

_Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido._

_Oir la noche immensa, más inmensa sin ella._

_Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío._

_Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla._

_La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo._

_Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos._

_Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido._

_Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca._

_Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo._

A few x’s, a few o’s. Ana’s name resting at the end with no way to not read between the lines. There will be no mistaking this. Ana needs the three of them back to feel like she’s breathing at all.

——//——

Ana’s phone, for the most part, sits empty. (Much like traitorous organs in her own body that have done the unthinkable) There is a FaceTime Saturday night that Ana has to paint her best face on to make sure Valentina doesn’t know of her Mamá’s pain. Or for Juan Carlos to suspect brooding on her part.

She’s not a brooder. Never has been. She rubs her face with her palms after the call ends. Another never. Ana flops back on her bed with a cradled thud. She doesn’t move much over the next twelve hours either. 

Ana is assuming this is what the depressive stage feels like of grief and quite frankly, she hates it. Hates the way it makes her feel weak and vulnerable. 

“I wouldn’t tell me I was in love with me either,” she mutters Sunday morning after a night of periodic slumber. She knows she’s not exactly approachable for anyone actually _feeling_ anything, but hasn’t Mariana changed her? 

The old Ana was like that, not the one that has relinquished control to the things Mariana thinks and the things Mariana would like to do, and how Mariana thinks they should be raising their girls. 

She knows the old saying goes “three strikes and you’re out” and judging by the silence of her phone she has refrained from tossing against a wall in anger, the adage holds true. But that growing in distance flicker is what keeps Ana holding out hope.

Sunday evening, Ana can’t wait any longer. She’s given Mariana weeks to come around, poured her heart out in the ways that she knows how. She’s hurt and angry and that has to be what is making her find Mariana’s contact and pressing the buttons after almost two months of not speaking.

 _~Speak to me._

Not exactly eloquent but something. Ana watches it go from delivered to read. Nothing back though. She feels her blood start to churn.

_~Or if you won’t speak to me, won’t see me, at least let Regina see him._

She attaches the address to where Juan Carlos is staying. Again, the message goes from delivered to read. Ana’s agitation flares, which must be why she’s pressing Mariana’s contact information to call her. 

Ana expects it to go to voicemail. She expects the call to end immediately from Mariana declining it on the other end. What she doesn’t expect is to be jolted back by a buzzing and see a FaceTime request summoning her to press accept. 

Then Mariana’s face is filling the screen after two whole months of Ana not seeing her at all, not even hearing her voice. The way the ridiculous butterflies begin, flapping and wispy in her belly, is ridiculous and she’s too old for this really. 

Ana hooks a thumb backward, so disheveled by seeing Mariana that she doesn’t even process that she’s not in the baby’s room. “Vale isn’t here.” She winces when she says it, the grainy static of truth now a full-on memory. She’d just sent Mariana the address to Juan Carlos’s. 

“You don’t say,” Mariana snaps a little but then seems to think better of her tone. She looks down, avoiding Ana’s eyes even though she’s the one who initiated the call. 

A stilted silence falls over them and Ana doesn’t know what to say next. All she can seem to do is focus her pale eyes on Mariana’s perfect, beautiful face. She shifts a little as the thought travels like a live wire through her. 

“We need to talk,” Ana says finally, glances at the way Mariana’s face changes. 

“Yes,” the woman sighs. “We do. About a lot.” She stops, her mouth hanging open a bit. “I just wasn’t sure you were ready. I mean, you told me to get out of your house.”

Ana feels ripped into. She sits up straight rather quickly and tries to wipe away a tear that’s begun to fall. “I haven’t known how to apologize. But I’ve tried.” She trails off.

“By sending me things,” Mariana clarifies. She frowns but her face is a mixture of trouble and something Ana can’t define. “Wonderful, beautiful things that remind me of what I don’t have.” Her brown eyes pin Ana’s blue. 

“It’s because I miss Regina,” Ana shrugs, as if she hasn’t taken her own heart out of her chest and offered it to Mariana. “I miss you.” 

Because they’re a team. Because Mariana has somehow become her best friend and the person she trusts most in the world. Because she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that life is not as bright without her or their daughter in it.

 _Ours. I want that_ , Ana thinks. 

Then her imagination takes over, one where she and Mariana can continue to co-parent and instead of walking through the door to an empty house from a job she let go and they begged her to come back to, maybe she can find Mariana in the girl’s rooms and give her a kiss on the cheek. Maybe she can wrap her arms around her as they cook or rest her hands on Mariana’s shoulders and waist as they slow dance one evening after the girls have gone to bed. Ana’s cheeks pink. And maybe, she can gain the courage to actually kiss Mariana with conviction, to show her with her body and words how much she actually means to her. Because Ana wants that too. It almost burns her up from the inside. 

“Ana, don’t,” Mariana’s voice fractures with emotion and she looks away. Ana’s soaring heart sinks. “You’re fine without me.” And then the screen goes back to Ana’s home one.

She startles at the abrupt end, her own cords feeling cut and dangling. “I’m not,” Ana shakes her head and falls back against the bed again. 

No child, no husband, no best friend who might be something more if they would both let it—this is not the life Ana imagined. She isn’t sure of the one yet to come either.

——//——

Even though Mariana had ended the call, it seems that the trick of just getting past themselves and talking does the trick. While sporadic, the texts are at least happening—for which Ana is grateful. 

After about a week of back and forth with checking in on the girls, Ana decides to try again. Before she can think better of it, she types out the message and quickly hits send.

_~How about I cook something for us this weekend? Sadly, Valentina will be back with Juan Carlos, but I hope that doesn’t determine you coming._

_-You can cook? Since when? 😉_

Ana immediately laughs and rubs a hand along Valentina’s back as she scoots along on the floor on her belly. Picking up her phone again, she responds. 

_~You forget I took a class. Also, I still hate it, but I think the occasion will make me look beyond it._

_-Regi will be with Pablo starting Friday night too. Some big bowling event or something. I wanted to question it but she’s his daughter so I didn’t have the heart to gripe again. It would just be me for this meal you may or may not be making yourself. I hope that’s okay?_

Ana, despite her other feelings, still feels nervousness rise. _We will be alone._ She scolds herself at the turn her mind is taking. _Nothing has to happen. Nothing will happen!_ But the dark part of her knows she wants it to. She’s had two months to get used to the idea and she wants it badly. 

...but she’s the one who essentially rejected Mariana’s declaration. She has to halt her mind and body and think about how being alone with her might make Mariana feel. 

~ _If you’re not bothered by it, I would love to have you Saturday evening. Not sure about the menu yet, but I will think of something. How hard can it be?_

She tries for a bit of levity at the end, worried she’s misplaced the humor. Her heart about leaps out of her chest though at the response. 

_-Just text me a time. See you then._

Ana smiles broadly, feels even more. Redirecting her, her phone chirps again.

_-Maybe we can talk about some things._

_~Yes. 8pm on Saturday._

She’s surprised her phone doesn’t crack with how hard she holds it to her chest after their exchange. Ana doesn’t know what to expect but finds she’s ready for it all the same. 

——//——

To say that Ana spends the next five days in an anxious state is an understatement. Even Rodrigo and Cecí comment on the way their mother seems keyed up. Valentina, seeming to echo the sentiment, lets out a frustrated set of whimpers. Ana bounces her against her hip. 

“Your sister here is about ready to begin walking. God knows I’ve already seen her trying to pull up. She’s almost nine months. I feel as if I need to bubble wrap the whole house,” she tries to play off the reasoning behind her emotional state. Not as if tomorrow has anything to do with it.

“I’m surprised you haven’t already,” Rodrigo mutters under his breath and crosses his arms. 

Ana’s eyes go wide at the teenager. “Let’s think about the shots we take, hmm? I haven’t checked your phone lately,” Ana warns, again leaving out that she’s been too preoccupied thinking about breasts too. She sighs. Perhaps her and her son are more alike than she has previously noticed. “Who knows what I might find on there now.”

Rodrigo physically withdraws, clutching his phone tightly until his knuckles turn white. Cecí looks amused. “Probably folder after folder of boobs and butts. Or have we graduated to other parts of female anatomy?” the girl taunts her brother. 

Ana wipes a hand over her face, desperately not wanting to have this conversation. She’s well aware of impulses and desires (she’s had a few of her own lately—ones she has _almost_ taken care of) but having a conversation with her children about the intricacies of self pleasure is not how she imagined spending the day. 

“Alright,” Ana tells them, holding up a hand. “All bottoms and breasts aside, let’s try to keep a handle on our frustrations so that we may continue to _tolerate_ one another.” 

She says it more for herself than the children. They look dubious but nod. “Alright, I’ve got to figure out how to cook and do some other things in the span of mere hours, so off you go.” She waves a hand to shoo them.

Thankfully, neither ask about the ‘other things’ part of her statement and zero in on the first part. Rodrigo does a metal grin. “Have you been abducted by aliens? Were you planning to make supper tonight?”

“Can’t we just order a pizza?” Cecí grumbles, lightly stomping a foot. 

“Fine, but it will be a completely unplugged meal. No phones at the table despite the informal food selection,” Ana narrows her eyes to a squint. 

Her own phone dings then, mocking her words. She adjusts Valentina on her hip and feels lighter as she sees who it’s from. _Still on for tomorrow?_ She bites her lip to contain a smile. 

“That goes for you too then,” Cecí combats. “God, you’re acting so weird lately.” 

Ana jerks her attention up to her two children, Cecí rolling her eyes and leaving. Rodrigo looks sympathetic to his mother being on the receiving end of Ceci’s bad mood but says nothing has he departs too. 

“Order the damn pizza!” Ana calls out after them, more so to her petulant daughter than the other. Hopefully the girl takes the very loud hint. If anything, Ana has learned that she is good at waiting things out. Her daughter is no exception. 

Thankfully, Cecí does make the call and they have a rather pleasant meal, all things considered. Ana picks more at her plate than she eats though, even holding her slice up at one point to watch a grease droplet fall onto the pristine white plates. 

“What a waste of fine China,” she had muttered and Cecí had fixed her with an eye roll. “It’s delicious anyway. Probably better than what you were going to attempt to throw together too.”

She had to hand it to her there though. She barely knew how to turn the oven on or boil water. The fact that she had offered to make a full fledged meal the next day was more than troublesome. 

That night in her room, Ana opens her laptop, perusing websites to figure out what the hell she can manage. It’s not as if her own childhood is available to rifle though, a box of handed down recipes for generations. She can’t even remember her abuelita, so fuzzy a memory in the past. Her mother fails to be a source as well. 

By ten pm, she’s scribbled a few ideas down but isn’t set on any of them. Beside the laptop, her phone pings with a message. 

_-I’m glad we are getting together tomorrow night._

Ana works to type a message back. _Me too,_ is her simple response. 

_-Any idea what you’re putting together yet?_

Casting blue eyes down to the notations, Ana tilts her head, weary. 

~ _Still trying to finalize the details but I assure you, there will be food of some sort._

No answer comes for a while and Ana resigns herself to that being the end of their exchange. Her phone tells her otherwise.

_-I know we need to talk in person, but I need to say I’m sorry. For everything._

This could be all encompassing, but all Ana can backtrack to is the four words Mariana etched into her heart and mind: _I’m in love with you._ Ana rolls her shoulders and works to focus herself.

~ _There is much to be discussed, yes. But you owe me no apology, Mariana. Trust me. We will talk more tomorrow, okay?_

_-Of course. It will be good to see you again. Can’t wait to try your cooking!_

And then a picture arrives soon after the message. Ana forgets what air is. Mariana is holding the phone above her, a smile played across her lips. The old t-shirt is slightly askew and Ana can see the tan skin of a shoulder. Her shorts are nothing flashy but short, and Ana can make out the smoothness of the tops of her thighs. She grips her own nightshirt with a hot hand. 

_~And where is my little one?_

_-Pablo picked her up early. He wanted to spend a bit more time with Regi. Sorry to disappoint with just me in the picture. 😞_

_Dear Lord, these millennials and their emoji texting._ Ana isn’t sure she’s used one her entire life, coming from Generation X and being a strict texter, which often gets her referred to as an uptight conversationalist. Heaven forbid she use precise language, good grammar, or have a command of any type of structure. Caught up in her own brain, her fingers misfire with a text back.

_~The picture was appreciated. In fact, I wouldn’t mind more._

When she realizes what she’s done, her eyes go wide and she almost throws her phone. The blue bubbles on the opposite side of the screen prevent her from doing so. 

_-Oh, really? What kind?_

Has Mariana been able to tell the restraint Ana has been having to exercise, the pure amount of force she’s having to exert to hold back? This is not good. They’ve agreed to talk tomorrow. Ana shouldn’t be pushing Mariana, especially when she hasn’t had a chance to offer her own regrets too. 

~ _I’m sorry, Mariana. I shouldn’t have implied…_

_-Ana, it’s okay. I trust you. You know the way I feel so just...know that I would do anything for you. That I would show you anything you asked. Okay?_

Ana has to squeeze her eyes shut and lay down her phone. She’s nothing short of aching now and she’s invited the idea into the room by insinuating more. She’s gone two months. What’s another few hours? 

_~Trust me when I say I definitely don’t want to leave this line of thinking, but we must. Tomorrow. Xxxx_

Another picture arrives, Mariana laying on her side and looking at the camera. _Buenas noches, Ana,_ it reads. 

Ana curls on her side, brings her fingers to her lips, and presses them to the screen. “Buenas noches, mi amor,” she whispers in the stillness of her bedroom.


	3. Gestures Five and Six

After Juan Carlos picks up Valentina, Ana practically runs from the door. Not that she doesn’t love her daughter but anything with Juan Carlos lately tests her patience. Plus, she’s still got to shower and get ready for her date with Mariana. 

_ It’s not a date _ , she has to scold herself in the shower. As she rubs body wash on herself, she tries to bypass thinking about the lump in her right breast, a fibroid cyst she knows now. Nothing required really as there isn’t much to do for it, but what a scare it’s given her. 

_ I hope Mariana won’t mind.  _ She stalls washing herself in the shower.  _ God, Ana, get it together! That’s not what tonight is. That might not be what it ever is!  _

It’s weird to be having a physical response to something when emotionally, another thing altogether is occurring. To want but not know if you’ll ever receive. To love but also be in love. The fine split between the two is confusing to get a hold of.

Ana leaves the shower and looks through her undergarments drawer. It feels odd to look at them with a new eye, still wondering if she needs to pick something a little more delicate and intimate than her usual fare or even what she might have chosen at one point for Juan Carlos. 

_ Be comfortable in your own body.  _

She’d said something along those lines to Mariana not long ago, about trying to get back into the swing of things with someone you trust. Granted two months isn’t the longest time to not have experienced anything relating to physicality, from herself or otherwise, but Ana is a bit nervous to think that she undoubtedly wants her next time to be with Mariana. 

A soft, lacy set seems to be a perfect bridge between normalcy and sexy lingerie meant for only one thing: taking it off. As for what goes on top, she decides for simple and casual, pulling on a faded pair of denim jeans that she’d purchased a lifetime ago. Adorning a silky white top that flows with her movements, she leaves it untucked and a few buttons open—nothing exactly scandalous but also perhaps hinting at wanting more. 

She puts on a gold necklace, a matching pair of earrings. Looking at her rings though, she has a rogue thought about leaving them off and she knows her skin is probably reflecting the embarrassment of her idea, faint red splotching rising on her neck and cheeks. 

Going barefoot, Ana quickly gets to work on supper and double checks on the wine in the fridge, which looks to be the perfect chill by the time she’s done. The boiling of the water and toasting of the French bread proves slightly more effort than Ana has ever put into anything, but Mariana can’t be expecting a gourmet meal when Ana has put together not one singular thing herself since they’ve known one another. 

“I can’t cook, I’ve made a mess of my own life,” Ana mumbles to herself over the pasta. “Why would Mariana even want me?”

She’s beating herself up over things she might could have changed but now are very difficult to fix. A divorce is looming because even though part of her still loves Juan Carlos, she also knows the other half has been rearranged and moved to the person she’s expecting tonight. 

There’s no other way to describe the feelings she’s feeling if it’s not love, so much deeper and complicated than just having a friend. Ana wants Mariana as a partner the rest of her life and perhaps she’s a fool for thinking this so soon on the tail of her marriage imploding, but some things have a way of hitting people all of a sudden and it’s the only path you can ever imagine taking. That’s the way it’s become with Mariana. 

The doorbell rings and jolts Ana from her spiraling thoughts. She runs a hand through her hair, adjusts her blouse just so, and gently dabs at the lipstick coating her mouth, none coming off when she removes her finger.

_ It’s now or never.  _

Sucking in a breath, Ana opens the door and there is Mariana. Over sixty whole days of seeing two pictures of her and nothing else, now here she stands on Ana’s doorstep looking beautiful. 

Her hair falls around her shoulders in gentle waves, touching the loose and billowy navy cotton shirt she has on. Jean shorts sit lovely on her shapely hips and a pair of simple sandals adorn her feet, pale toenail polish peeking out. Ana finally notices the bottle in her hand. 

“For us?” she points but then frowns when Mariana nods and offers it to her. “That’s not what I wanted to say after two months.” She sighs, exasperated, but takes the bottle and then decides to chance a step closer to Mariana. A smile tugs at her lips, but she loses it with the overwhelming emotions pounding in her chest. “I’m glad you came.”

Ana desperately wants to reach out and touch her. She doesn’t. 

“I may or may not be, depending on what we’re having,” Mariana chides, then does her own pointing toward the kitchen. 

Ana spins and sees a lot of steam coming from the area, her eyes going wide. “Shit,” she mutters and then begins to run with the wine bottle on her bare feet on the polished floor. She slides on the surface of it a little, spinning toward Mariana. “I’m sorry! Come in, get comfortable!” 

The bottle goes into the fridge while Ana works another hand turning off the stovetop, the pasta more than ready and the sauce barely being contained in the pot. Well, she tried at least. She guesses it comes out without her realizing it because it’s being commented on behind her.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s fine,” Mariana whispers in her ear and is that a hand ghosting close to her hip? Ana has to bite her lip and close her eyes as the woman’s breath tickles her when she speaks. 

By the time Ana turns around, Mariana has seated herself at the table and leans forward on her elbows, clasping her hands in front of her and giving her brightest smile. Ana stands immobile for a few seconds before going back to action. 

She takes Mariana’s plate in front of her setting and begins to fix it for her. Depositing back in front of her, she prepares her own and then gets them both a glass of wine. When she finally sits down, she and Mariana share a look between them. 

“Thank you for this, Ana,” Mariana nods with her head toward the food. 

“Don’t thank me yet,” Ana warns lightly. “Let’s see if it’s edible first.” She shoots Mariana a grin but then stills when she feels and sees the hand pressing into her forearm. Ana’s eyes track to Mariana’s wrist, finally seeing the jewelry resting there.  _ She’s worn it.  _

“Let’s see then,” Mariana challenges with an eyebrow quirk, but her hand doesn’t move and Ana never wants it to. Eventually, she does have to withdraw to eat though and Ana shivers a little inside. 

So weird how a simple touch can do that, change a body irrevocably. Looking back, Ana’s mostly been the one to initiate touch between them, something unconscious but seeking. To have Mariana starting the touches holds new meaning altogether, especially after the confession that was desperately pushed out from her two months ago. Ana’s put them in this position. If only she had just stopped to process…

“Yes, let’s.” Ana tries for her best smile but too much is running through her head to be completely calm. 

However, Mariana has this way about her that thaws even the hardest of layers in Ana and before she knows it, they’ve settled into a reasonably easy conversation. While a little perfunctory and mostly about the girls and how they’re progressing as they approach their first birthday, it’s nice.

“What are we going to do for the girls? Their birthdays are in a couple of months and I haven’t even thought of a plan,” Mariana puts a hand to her head in exasperation. “Have you planned anything for Regi?”

Right, because that happens too now. The girls do things separately because Ana and Mariana live their lives how they were originally intended to: apart. Ana runs a nail along the table, her vision fixed on the movement. She hates this situation that she’s created. 

“I haven’t,” she admits, which is terrible considering it’s her last child’s first birthday. But she’s been so lost in loss, happiness has been hard to work toward. The prospect of it, especially after the last few months, feels foreign too. “We could have their birthdays together.”

Mariana’s face gets much the same expression as it did when Ana suggested she and Valentina move in. It’s unsure, wary. Ana wonders how long she can chastise herself for making things this way. 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she says nervously, beginning to fidget. 

Suddenly, Ana feels very tired. Tired of being the one to mess things up, tired of being the one running away, tired of the one hiding. “Because I told you to leave,” Ana blurts out but wants the confirmation too. 

“Yes,” Mariana’s eyebrows knit together. “And I know you’ve been trying, but part of me can’t convince myself that you want us to go back to the way things were...sort of.” She shoots a quick look over to Ana. 

Ana thinks carefully about what to say next since this feels like the cusp of the talk they had both agreed to have. If she doesn’t want to continue to make a colossal mess, she needs to wade into it delicately. 

“You know…” Ana trails off, looks away from Mariana and shakes her head with a laugh. “I don’t know how many people on this earth can claim to have gone through what we have together. Carrying our babies, having them be switched, getting them back only to not really know them at all. 

“People just don’t go through things like this,” Ana shrugs. “So there is no precedent for this.” She motions between them. “I’ve lived my life on lists and rules, so I don’t know how to do this.”

“Neither do I,” Mariana concedes. “And you know I’ve always lived my life free. But you, Ana? You have been tied to one of the biggest surprises of my life.” Now it’s her turn to shake her head. “No stability, always bouncing around from one place to the next. There was never solid ground, until you. So Ana, I’m sorry that I latched on a little harder than I should have but it was just  _ so _ nice to be able to breathe for a little while and…”

The rest never comes out. The words are pushed down and away because Ana lunges then, does what she’s wanted to do for weeks, even when she’d been too afloat in her anger to comprehend that Mariana was kissing her back then. 

It’s far too quick and rather inelegant, but she’s got her lips on Mariana’s, the familiarity of it rearing its head somewhere in the back of her mind. It feels right and like maybe she and Mariana should have been doing this all along. 

Except Mariana isn’t moving so Ana backs away, scooting her chair back a little that she has accidentally dragged closer to Mariana. She puts some space between them. “I’m sorry,” she begins, flustered. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Nothing you haven’t done before,” Mariana gives her a small smile. 

“What?” Ana sits down, dares to put her hand on Mariana’s thigh like nothing sits between them, no yesterday’s to mess them up or time to create even bigger wounds. 

“You kissed me first, sort of like you just did,” Mariana shrugs and why is she acting so cavalier about this when Ana is barely hanging on? “That night you came in late and caught me as I was going to Elena’s gig.At the club, you decided it would be a good idea to get high off of Elena’s magic mushrooms.” She laughs a little. “I guess you took a big trip because you grabbed me before we left and started talking about dying and taking care of our girls.”

Ana feels emotion pummeling her gut, the hazy memory of it starting to come back little by little. She remembers going to the club, but everything after eating the chocolate has been a complete blur. Why hasn’t she recalled this before now? Why is it taking Mariana bringing it back with sudden vivid clarity? 

She can’t help her reflex, and a few fingers go up to ghost across her own lips. God, she  _ remembers _ . 

“And you told me you loved me,” Mariana’s voice is small. “Not like a ‘te quiero’ kind of way but the ‘te amo’ way. It was so confusing and I’ve replayed it thousands of times in my head, trying to determine if it was the drugs or your fear of your cancer or if it was just you and your heart talking.”

Mariana’s eyes go wide. “Oh, God, I haven’t even asked about the biopsy results! Ana, I’ve been so selfish. I told you I’d be here for you no matter what and the second we hit a road bump, I didn’t keep my promise.”

“I’ve gave you no reason to,” Ana sighs and reaches down to pick up her hand. It’s warm and comforting and everything like Ana remembers. She’s missed this, a simple touch connecting them together. “And I think…” Ana really works to get her mind around what she wants to convey. “when I kissed you then, I was probably feeling a lot of things. I don’t remember it, not well at least.” Oh, how she wishes she did though. She says this. 

“Why?” Mariana whispers and her voice shakes a little. She pushes a lock of hair out of her face. Ana catches it with her own fingertips, runs the pads along it.

“You know why,” Ana responds in her own muted voice, because they’re here, circled back around to the thing that Ana cut the rope to two months ago. “Are you still in love with me?”

Asking the final question is quite possibly the most frightening thing she’s had to say to someone’s face. With the answer could come some of the greatest joy Ana has experienced in almost four decades—or the greatest sorrow. 

“I’ve been hurt,” Mariana’s voice pares Ana to the bone. “What you said that day. For once in my life, I felt so sure of my emotions and even though I knew this might happen, I wanted to take the chance. After you kissed me at the club, I thought you might feel the same way.”

_ I do, I do, I do _ ! Ana’s mind screams. For some reason, those words don’t come out. Ana looks down at their entwined hands. Before she can say anything, Mariana chimes in again.

“On paper, you and I aren’t supposed to work,” Mariana says. “We read more like a telenovela.”

Ana sits back against the chair. “How is that?”

“Twenty something falls for married, older woman who also happens to be the woman whose child got mixed up with the twenty-somethings at birth and who hated each other to begin with but now…” Mariana leaves Ana to finish the end of the tale. 

Ana nods, understanding now. She gets it. It does all sound rather crazy. Still, Ana feels apprehension begin to flow again and a look of dejection takes over.  _ I’m getting told no. _

“But here’s the thing,” Mariana whispers, leans in a bit conspiratorially. She brings a finger to Ana’s chin, lifting her head so they can look each other in the eyes. “I love telenovelas.”

“I do too,” Ana tells her, even though she doesn’t seem like that type of woman who would because of their over the top tendencies. But this has been her life for the last year and she finds she would do it all over again. “I’d do our story just the way it’s been, except I’d change the day of the christening.”

She scoots her chair now to where their knees are touching and she reaches out for Mariana’s other hand, holding them both in her own. “I love our friendship, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that when you kissed me that day, I felt something. I just didn’t have a name for it then.

“Juan Carlos is the one who betrayed me, not you. I was upset and took out my pain on the first thing I cared about, maybe because I didn’t feel like I deserved to be happy. But I’ve thought about it every day since then. What I should have done.”

“Which is what?” Mariana’s gaze bores straight into Ana. Behind them, the sun has gone down and it’s creeping into a deep night. 

In the faint light of the kitchen, Ana leans in while placing a hand on Mariana’s elbow and kisses her like she should have two months ago. It’s a kiss of love, sure, but of want and need and desire. It’s built on tragedy and friendship and a world cracked open. There is no parsing through the meaning to this. Ana kisses Mariana with everything she has.

“Yo tambièn estoy enamorada de ti,” Ana says from the very depths of her heart and then like a surge, Mariana is pushing out her chair and mounting Ana’s lap, pushing her back into the wood of it with a searing kiss. 

Ana can barely keep up, can hardly breathe, because Mariana’s hands are resting on the back of the chair and Ana has no place to put her idle hands except to fist one in the rolling curls of Mariana’s hair and clutch desperately at her hip with the other. 

A shock of Ana’s blonde hair falls down in the heated exchange and Mariana threads it through her fingers, holding on for dear life. Which also causes her hips to rock a little and when they hit Ana’s just right, she yanks out of the kiss with a gasp and closes her eyes tightly. 

She doesn’t know if she’s meant it as such, but Mariana takes it as an opportunity and begins to latch on to Ana’s throat. Her lips kiss a long line down, pushing aside the silky white of her top. Mariana doesn’t dare pop any more buttons. Ana finds herself wishing she would as she feels a soft bite to the top swell of her breast. 

Just as soon as it begins, it ends and Mariana is pulling away while gasping for air. Ana is doing her own type of recovery, chest heaving, and she has to press her bare feet into the tile to ground herself from jolting her hips back into Mariana’s. She lets her own hand take over where Mariana’s hand was in her hair, pushing it back and away. 

“Why did you stop?” Ana can’t help but ask. She wants so much more. Reminding her, she feels a throb, low. 

“Ana, we just had a talk. Isn’t this too much to start out with? Don’t we need a little time?” Mariana wants to know, hand tracing Ana’s cheek. 

She catches the woman’s hand. “I’ve had two months,” Ana tries but Mariana is pulling up. She looks stricken.

“I shouldn’t have pushed this much,” Mariana paces and what the fuck is happening? They had just been having one of the hottest make out sessions of Ana’s life.  _ And it isn’t just because you’ve been with the same man for the last twenty years either.  _

“Hey, stop. Listen,” Ana works to bring Mariana to a halt. “I won’t push anything tonight but Mariana...I want to be with you, in all of the ways.”

“Jesus, I have to go now,” Mariana seems to fall apart. Quickly, she grabs her purse and beelines for the door. 

Ana can do nothing but stand dumbfounded in the kitchen, her hands on her hips and her heart breaking.

“Please give me a chance”, Ana pleads in a whisper. Only to herself. 

——//——

It hasn’t been as bad as it ended. At least, that’s what Ana has to tell herself, to remind herself that there had been a string of texts following that abrupt exit on Mariana’s part. 

Also the other fact that has Ana slightly embarrassed in the bright light of the day. How she’d be frustrated and hopeful and so turned on as Mariana had left, she found herself not even bothering with the kitchen as she’d headed upstairs to her bedroom.  _ So much for giving staff the night off,  _ she’d thought then. Mariana had made it so much better. 

First, a simple message asking forgiveness, saying it was a lot. Next, Ana’s reply stating that it might be for the best since she was still primed and ready. 

Like a wild tiger, she’d worn a path on the floor. Not even the wine could take the edge off. That is, until Mariana had offered to help. 

For a thousand reasons, Ana’s mind had screamed no. The plethora of things she’d told herself for the last couple of months proof that she could make it longer. But that had been before Mariana’s lips and Mariana’s hips and when Ana had a second to think, Mariana’s breasts pressed against Ana’s—layers of fabric be damned. 

The day is well on its way to mid-morning and Ana looks down at her hand, coloring slightly. Like a volcano, she’d boiled over and let Mariana hear every single moment of it as her cry ripped out on the air. 

The little indentations on her hand remind her of something else, the way when it had hit her, she’d tried to stifle the sound with her hand covering her mouth. Only maybe mere seconds, but it had been long enough for Ana to leave marks before Mariana had told her, “Ana, let me hear you.”

So she had and the delicious relief she felt only managed to hang around slightly longer than her failed attempt to stifle her scream. “I need to see you again,” Ana had panted out, sitting up after taking care of the intensity her own body was capable of. 

“Soon, soon,” Mariana had said, her voice sounding strained. 

“Oh,” Ana had breathed. “I could talk to you too, so you can…”

A little huff into the earpiece of the phone. “No, it’s fine. I can take care of things in a bit.”

“But I would like to be with you when it happens,” Ana had gripped her phone tighter as she’d said the words. 

“Then I never should have left. I promise, soon,” Mariana had tried to soothe.

Now, Ana has had to live in her thoughts about what happened after they’d said goodbye. Had let her imagination run wild as she’d taken a shower and succumbed all over again, hand scrambling for purchase on the slick wall to keep herself upright. 

Getting Valentina back centers Ana’s desires though and she goes through the week, spending time with her children and enjoying the sounds that come back into the house to fill it up when they’re all under the same roof. 

To top it off, the hours in between are spent with Mariana, even if she isn’t physically there. Her presence wraps around Ana like a cocoon and keeps her feeling vibrantly alive as the days pass. 

Ana also plans her last gift, the one to end all gifts. One afternoon, she puts the finishing touches on it. Juan Carlos eyes her suspiciously, but she knows his own guilt keeps him from saying too terribly much. 

“Are you sure?” He did that thing he always does, pinching his face up like he was just a concerned husband questioning his wife’s behavior instead of being the type of person who ripped everything apart. 

“As if there was ever going to be any other option,” Ana sneered, narrowing her eyes at him. He’d held up conciliatory hands then, trying to placate her into lowering her hackles. “You’ll pick the kids up Friday evening then? I’ve got plans.”

The way his eyebrows had shot to his hairline was comical. “Plans?” 

“Yes,” Ana rolled her eyes. “Those things people make with one another when they aren’t being a sneaky piece of shit.”

As she’d started to walk off, his grating and accusatory voice had stopped her. “With Mariana?”

Oh, the way her eyes had held daggers of ice. She’d pinned him with them, her body deadly still. She had needed a few seconds to plan her words. “You’d know that how, Juan Carlos?” She could do accusations too, so she’d crossed her arms across her chest. “Did Tere tell you that?”

“I’m not the only one who cheated, Ana,” he had warned. 

_ No, but you’ve done so with my girlfriend’s mother _ , she’d thought to herself and then had to purse her lips and shrug. Leaning forward, she’d kissed his cheek, stuffing down her previous ire. 

“Be on time,” she’d commanded and left without another word. 

He had kept his, showing up promptly Friday evening and leaving her with another day to get ready. Dawn had filtered in and with it, Ana had set to motion. 

There’s little to do this time since they’ve agreed to sit outside this evening. It’s beautiful out and a bit of fresh air couldn’t hurt. The help looks shocked when she gives them their second night off in as many weeks. 

“Go home or go relax but like…” Ana points a finger upward. “Can you grab that annoying karaoke machine of Cecí’s and find a bottle of that really nice white wine I like.” Alta looks bewildered. Ana corrects. “I’m not getting drunk on the outdoor deck and singing to the top of my lungs. I think the machine has a place that will let me plug my phone in for music.”

By the time evening settles in, everything is ready and Ana has been seated on the plush couch for quite some time. When she glanced up again, Mariana is making her way across the lawn. Ana stands to greet her, reaching out a hand. 

Mariana takes it and Ana leans in to gently kiss her cheek. “Hi,” she smiles and turns their hands so that their fingers can lace together. 

“Hey,” Mariana does that dazzling smile she does. She looks around. “So what’s going on here?”

“I thought we could just hang out here tonight, maybe talk a while. Drink a bit,” she motions to the tray upon a cart where Alta has laid out a nice spread for them. Mariana nods and Ana goes to fix them each a glass. 

Conversation goes much easier this time and much to Ana’s elation, there is laughter and smiles filled with interspersed touches that warm her up from the inside. With a couple of glasses down, she gathers the courage to finally use Ceci’s old karaoke machine. Flipping through her phone, she finds a song and presses play. 

Taking a step back to where Mariana sits, Ana holds out her hand. “Dance with me,” she summons Mariana to rise. 

Like drifting on a breeze, Mariana comes to rest in Ana’s arms. Her hand connects with Ana's, the other going to her hip and Ana curls her fingers a little at the nape of Mariana’s neck. They sway back and forth to the music Ana has chosen. 

“My feet aren’t in jeopardy it seems,” Mariana cracks a joke. “You’ve learned a lot since our last lesson.”

“Maybe with you, I just know how to move,” Ana counters. 

The wind stirs, as if it knows she will need cooling off the longer this night goes on. Something uncategorical graces Mariana’s face and she lets go of Ana’s hand, moving it to join the other one around her neck while she encircles Ana’s hips. Ana feels her body lurch inward as Mariana pulls her closer. 

“Maybe,” she whispers. 

The quiet comes and Ana finds herself wanting to be closer still. She lays her head on Mariana’s shoulder until the end of the song. Reluctantly, she feels Mariana part from her, but a hand immediately joins her cheek. “Ana…”

“Come sit with me?” Ana bids. A wordless nod accompanies. 

As they come to rest, Ana pulls out the folder she had stashed earlier in the evening and hands it to Mariana, whose eyes go wide when she sees the markings of the lawyer’s office on the top of the manilla.

Almost like panic unwrapping, she works hurriedly to undo the folder with shaking fingers. “Ana, there’s no way you had time to file for a divorce and I can’t believe I’m saying this but maybe you need to take some more time to…”

By this point in her rambling, she’s reached what’s inside and Ana waits patiently while she reads. Mariana’s mouth hangs open. 

“It’s been finalized with the lawyer. Juan Carlos has even signed it. Vale is yours,” Ana scoots closer to look down at the file again. “I mean, if I die or something.”

Flurried hands are on Ana’s cheeks and she’s being forced to look at Mariana, who only holds her a split second before bringing their foreheads together. The act allows them to both look down at the paper between them. A plop lands on the ink, smearing it.

“Please tell me that’s not what’s happening,” Mariana closes her eyes as more tears slide down her cheeks. “Tell me you don’t have cancer.”

Ana can’t bring herself to say the truth, not when Mariana is weeping on her behalf. She holds both sides of her head and raises her up, bringing her lips to take away each salty tear that falls. This leads to peppered kisses all over Mariana’s face. 

“No, Mariana, I’m not,” Ana finally rests her own face against Mariana’s, her words spoken softly from lips that still taste salt. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I want you to be Vale’s godmother.”

“Ana, this is a lot,” Mariana hugs her fiercely. They each clutch desperately, tightly. 

“Tell me it’s more than what we’ve already had to go through,” Ana quips but then settles into seriousness again. “You once promised me you’d always been here for the girls, for me. Now you will be.

“Mariana,” Ana whispers. “I’m also sitting here telling you the same. That I want to raise our babies together. And I’m sorry about the baptism and I’m sorry about everything I’ve said or done since then, but I just want our girls to be back together. I want us to be back together. I want you.”

Now the truth has been whittled away, the gradual paring down of the layers to finally get to here. This is the very last thing Ana knows to give in order to show Mariana that she is serious about a future with them together. 

“I don’t want to give you something you could destroy, Ana. I still need it too,” is the meek answer back. _ Her heart,  _ Ana thinks _. She’s talking about her heart.  _

It seems that in a life full of promises, ones that haven’t been kept and ones that have, the ones Mariana has made to Ana—it’s time for Ana to put forth her own. 

“I promise you that if you give me a chance, give us a chance, I’ll try with everything I am to never do anything to hurt you again. I can’t promise it won’t happen, but I’m saying I’ll work at it every day.” 

Ana is a businesswoman and doesn’t think a lot about the intricacy of words since in her world, beautiful ones aren’t exactly used every day. She hardly ever thinks of things outside of preciseness, the need for certain elements like punctuation. But the case now is that she feels the need to close her words with the ending of a kiss. She leans forward, delicately brushing her lips against Mariana’s, the faintest hint of pressure. 

She’s making all of the moves again, taking the lead on something that she perhaps needs to let Mariana guide them along in. So slowly, Ana backs away with her eyes still closed. It’s nice to hover in the space between them where air is the same. Eventually, her eyes flutter open to see what damage she’s done. 

There’s a split moment of what might happen, but then Mariana is wrapping her hands around Ana’s neck and she’s kissing her in a completely new way for another time. It’s nothing like the previous ones and everything like Ana has dreamed. She doesn’t hold back, threads her fingers through Mariana’s hair and pushes against her body with every ounce of longing she’s felt in the last two months, longer. 

And god, what kind of woman is she that she’s coming to rest on top of Mariana now, pressing her down into the cushions and kissing the world away? Anyone could see, Alta could walk up and ask if they need anything, but Ana knows all that she needs, right here and now, is the marvelous woman under her. 

The take charge, bold woman who lives inside of Ana everyday does not squander the opportunity when it arises to duck her fingers under the fabric that has fallen away from Mariana’s hip to expose tan flesh. 

Also rather curiously (or not) Ana has come to wedge her knee between Mariana’s legs and the danger (or joy) of it connecting rises with every nip and slide of their mouths against one another. 

_ Will she tell me no again? Will she run? _ Ana wonders as her fingers dance across the naked skin of Mariana’s belly and up her sides. Mariana’s hand stops Ana’s progress and everything turns on its end.

“Take me to bed, Ana,” Mariana implores.

Then the tipped over world rights itself again. Ana rises from the warmth of Mariana’s body, offers her a hand, then pulls her along into (hopefully) forever. 


	4. The Beginning of Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is where the story earns its rating. If you're not into that, maybe consider chapter 3 the end?

The path is littered with touches and the clawing of hands working against fabric when craving flesh. Ana glances down once, surprised by the way her shirt billows with movement from the no longer connected buttons to the holes. Similarly, Mariana’s lost the top layer of her ensemble, a simple coverlet atop her dress, and straining against her heaving chest. 

Any time or space put between them is too much, so Ana makes sure to keep them entwined in some way so that she doesn’t have to feel any sort of void anymore. This carries them to the door of her bedroom, has them barely removing their mouths from one another to make it through. 

Just as Mariana’s hand lands on the sides of Ana’s slacks, she pulls away because they’re at the edge of the bed. She eyes it with quiet scrutiny, casts her brown eyes back to Ana with a silent question. One Ana misinterprets.

“We don’t have to,” Ana manages to croak out, her lips feeling raw and chest still heaving. The flesh-toned bra underneath her shirt is sheer and does little to hide her body’s response to Mariana now that every button is open and the sides parted because of roaming hands. 

Her nipples are pebbled underneath the fabric and she sees that Mariana has noticed too. She’s always been confident in the bedroom, confident in herself, but this is different for many reasons. She’s not been with a woman before and even though her body wants Mariana wholly, Ana is still very nervous too. When it comes down to it though, Ana does not want to wait.

“It’s just that Juan…” Mariana begins but Ana immediately holds up a hand, silencing her. 

“Yes, I know,” she responds sadly. 

“And you,” Mariana continues. 

Ana can’t bring herself to nod again so she runs a hand through her hair, frustratingly turned on but guilty of bringing Mariana here. True enough, this is the marital bed she’s shared with Juan Carlos for years but every day that passes, she finds it’s holding less and less meaning. They’ve both messed up the meaning to what used to occur here. 

Mariana softly catches the hand that hangs at Ana’s side and brings it to her lips, placing peppered kisses across its surface. Ana, well, she melts. As if her body weren’t already a thousand degrees anyway. 

But the gesture rearranges some of the heat, reminds her that if anything happens tonight, it’s to illustrate the love that’s been growing between the two of them since Mariana and Regina moved in long term. (Forever. It could have been forever if…)

Mariana looks up after thoroughly covering Ana’s hand in affection, something relaying her feelings through her body language, the expression on her face.

Despite Mariana’s eyes on her, almost like silent scrutiny of what will happen next (what should), Ana feels a surge of something, enough to bolster her to undo the clasp of her slacks and part the sides, the same sheer, nude fabric peeking through. Nothing is left to the imagination here either. 

Mariana swallows and a hand reaches out but retreats. Ana takes that as a sign to continue and never lets her blue eyes trail from brown as she slowly works the garment down her slender thighs. 

She’s not trying for sexy or sensual, not really since her blood is roaring in her ears, but Ana feels herself heat up in full force again as she also pushes off her blouse to join the floor, leaving her standing in her undergarments. 

“Oh, Ana,” Mariana breathes, reverent, and steps closer, those hesitant fingers before touching a bare hip. 

She leans in and kisses Ana as if air doesn’t matter, as if what they’re both full up on is enough to keep them going. Mariana pulls Ana into her, holds her with splayed palms across her back and Ana can’t help the way a leg comes up and wraps around behind Mariana’s knees. 

As if action is making her bolder, Mariana reaches between them as they kiss, one of those open palms grazing Ana’s breast. The feel of her touching Ana in such a way makes Ana gasp out, her head pulling away from the kiss and looking down to where the sensation has landed. 

“Sorry,” Mariana apologizes, sheepish. 

Ana’s heart skips a beat at the look on her face. The hand that’s fallen away is sought again and Ana brings it back to cup her. With her hand over Mariana’s on her, she encourages her to move. 

They’re back together again, as if they never parted. While Mariana touches her, Ana can detect the barely contained restraint to it, of holding back and wanting more. She feels that acutely since she wants so much too.

Boldly, Ana grabs Mariana’s roaming hand, encouraging her to duck underneath the fabric of her panties. Which Mariana isn’t expecting—at all. Her first accidental touch sends both she and Ana moaning, has Ana working to get them as possibly close as they can be. 

“Take it off,” Ana manages, but she isn’t sure what she’s referring to. Marian's clothes, hers. Nothing specifically, everything particularly. 

“I want you to,” is the answer back. 

Ana touches her forehead, pressing them together and she works at the tie on Mariana’s dress, bends a little to rake the fabric of it up her tanned legs. She presses hot and shaking hands into the woman’s thighs. 

_What am I doing, who am I, why does this feel like everything_ , are the car wreck thoughts slamming into Ana’s mind. 

_“_ Can I see you?” Ana wonders. 

Her own breathing is erratic and she’s a wreck down below. A tight nod gives Ana the courage she needs. She bends to bring the dress over Mariana’s head, leaving her in a mirror of what Ana still has on.

They become equally matched in their lack, Mariana in her bra and panties too (powder blue). Ana looks at her with unbridled passion now, knowing she can wait no longer. She immediately reaches to undo the clasp to free Mariana. 

...except Mariana stops her with a hand on her shoulder. Ana has to work to quell what’s boiling inside her, what they’re stumbling toward. 

“Do I need to stop?” Ana has tried to check in every step of the way with Mariana, but she’s also sure her jittery nerves have made some impulsive gestures.

“No,” Mariana sighs, never removing her hands from Ana. In fact, she pulls her closer and just holds her. “I’ve just...never done this with a woman.”

Ana traces Mariana’s cheek, confused. She shakes her head. “But I thought...Elena?”

“Also a ‘no’,” Mariana gives a wry smile then works to amend. “I mean, there were some things but not everything. Not _the_ thing.” 

It’s very odd for things to make a world of sense and absolutely none at the same time. The fact that Mariana hasn’t been with Elena explains a lot of the woman’s reluctance to call the other her girlfriend, her back and forth attitude always one of chagrin to the dark-haired rocker. 

“This can be enough,” Ana offers, running her hands along Mariana’s biceps. 

They’re still pushed together and before Ana can follow what’s happening, the hook of her own bra gives way and Mariana is hooking her fingers underneath it to pull it from Ana’s shoulders, freeing her finally. Now it’s Mariana’s turn to gasp. 

Ana is painfully aware of her own body, the things she sees as flaws or shortcomings. But Mariana looks at her as if there is nothing more capable of inspiring awe. Her mouth hangs open slightly, Ana can see the speed at which breaths inflate her chest, and she bites her lip while looking Ana up and down. 

“You said that maybe I should try to be with someone again, to be with someone I trust,” Mariana whispers, and her hand trails down Ana’s slowly.

It registers that while they may have been with their respective baby’s daddies, this is something brand new that they’re walking into together. While Mariana has had a bit more experience in the other...bases, they’ve both not been with a woman.

Ana loses that thought as Mariana’s traveling hand wedges between their bodies and the only fabric left on Ana’s body. The first touch of her hand to where Ana has been a mess for a while almost sends her through the roof. She finds herself clutching at Mariana’s shoulders with desperate hands and rolling hips. 

“I trust you,” Mariana whispers against the side of Ana’s face as she does another experimental touch below. 

Ana is fairly certain she’s never whimpered once in her entire life during a physical encounter. Juan Carlos and even Daniel before him had that predatory gleam in their eyes, but Ana had always been aware of the power she’d have over them.

Now, Ana feels boneless. Stripped of anything that can keep her upright and in control. “Please, Mariana,” Ana pleads, chasing something good. “Move.” Blissfully, wonderfully, Mariana does. 

Like a flower folding at night, Ana does the same into Mariana’s body. Ana loses herself in the ministrations, even thinks about helping Mariana help her along at one point. She’s almost so far gone that when she feels her inevitable end approaching, she can’t back away from it. Now she does shoot out a hand. 

“You can’t keep going or I’ll…” she trails off, embarrassed how easy it would have been for Mariana to finish her. Gently, she removes Mariana’s hand. “I want to wait for you.” She slides her panties off, leaving her completely bare. “Lay with me?”

They both come to rest on top of the bed that doesn’t matter anymore. They’re together and Ana feels like her chest might crack open at the prospect of it. Ana climbs on top of Mariana, legs on both sides of her hips, and kisses her with a growing heat that Ana no longer wants to contain. 

She encourages Mariana to sit up as she undoes her bra, slides her panties down her legs. Now it’s her turn to get sheepish as she looks across the lovely planes and dips of Mariana’s body. 

“I don’t know if I’ll be good enough,” Ana admits. The fear is pretty all-encompassing too. It follows her everywhere. “I’ve never done something like this either.”

To be almost forty and not even had a hint of this in the past, as if the root of it has been tucked only in Mariana, as if Ana’s life has been time just waiting for the woman to show up and turn everything on its end. As if Ana has been living the wrong kind of life, perfectly in line and not tipped over. 

Mariana rolls them then, throws her legs now over Ana’s hips. The move makes her hair cascade down in rich brown waves. Ana rests her hands on Mariana’s hips, looks up at her full breasts. Aches to touch them. Ana gulps. 

“Is it okay if maybe I take the lead?” Mariana asks and Ana can’t speak, only nods. 

With the help of Ana’s hands, they remove the last article of clothing between them and stand on the precipice of really beginning. With a hand on Ana’s hip, Mariana begins touching her in earnest and she has to grab onto the sheets for dear life. 

Her eyes screw shut even though she desperately wants to not miss a thing. Maybe Mariana giggles a little, but she certainly leans down after a few swipes along Ana and pushes their chests delightfully together. 

“You are worth the wait,” she tells Ana tenderly. 

Ana’s heart shatters and she lunges up, grabbing Mariana by the hair and pinning her in a scorching kiss. She doesn’t ask as she nips along her breastbone, laves across a nipple with the pad of her tongue. She’s careful to move just so. This is all new and she’s operating on desire alone. 

Ana is not a stammerer. She’s always been so clear about what she wants and how she would go about getting it. But now, she’s overwhelmed. She doesn’t know how to ask for what she wants. 

“Can I...feel you?” Another question. Bigger than sight, bigger than having Mariana clouding her vision and her nose. She wants to know Mariana from the inside out, even though she has no idea how to do what she’s asking for. She knows herself though, so maybe it’s kind of the same _._

_This is the point of no return._

Mariana backs up, motions for Ana to sit up. She does, with Mariana still straddling her lap, breasts even with face. Ana fights the urge to burrow. “Like this?” she squeaks out and Mariana nods, guiding Ana’s hand to her hot center. Ana can barely scrabble together enough sense to know what to do next. 

“You’re...it’s so…” Ana tries. She’s robbed of words. The wonder of what she’s touching, how she’s touching Mariana is filling Ana with awe. _Understand what I’m trying to say,_ Ana thinks of her own ineloquence. 

“For you,” Mariana assures. She makes Ana raise her head. “For half a year, only for you.” 

Ana can’t even fathom being able to admit that, so she does what she can with her hand, pours every ounce of love she can into moving in a way that will make Mariana keen. 

As Mariana moves against her, as she presses and circles and cups, Ana can hardly believe her eyes. She has to blink several times to make sure she’s living her life. Ana holds her hip with her free hand, presses her head to Mariana’s chest, watches her own hand doing what it is.

Mariana reaches her peak with a hand fisted in Ana’s hair and her head thrown back, exposing the expanse of her neck. Ana becomes someone else, bites along it as Mariana rides out the sensation. They’re both panting wildly at the end of it and Ana’s body clenches when she closes her eyes, remembering what’s just happened. 

Silence envelops, the only sound their breaths. Ana wants to say something, wants to tell Mariana that this is everything she could ever want, beyond what she imagined with the two of them coming together. 

“I can’t believe we just did that.” Mariana is the first to speak. She chuffs out a bit of a laugh, traces her hand along Ana’s slightly sweaty head. 

“I know,” Ana agrees, but a smile tugs at her lips. She’s happy and wouldn’t change a thing. Mariana seems to notice.

“You don’t regret it?” She looks down between them, glances at Ana’s hand as if Ana will want to wipe away the beauty that they’ve started creating together. Her hand gently touches Ana’s hip. She’s always been so easygoing with touch, which Ana didn’t love at first. Now she can’t imagine life without it. 

“No,” Ana says quietly. “I don’t think I ever could.”

Mariana’s face spreads into a sultry look. “So if I said I wanted to touch you too?” 

She starts to back away and Ana protests mildly but then gets nervous when she sees what Mariana is asking, the mischievousness overtaking her body language as she slides lower. 

“Wait, I didn’t know you meant…” Ana trails off as Mariana’s eyes look upward. Ana catches her chin, runs a thumb across a cheekbone. 

“I’ll take good care of you,” Mariana assures.

“It’s not that. It’s just that…” Ana puffs out some air, ruffles her now wild blonde hair. “I wasn’t expecting that.” She motions downward and Mariana sits up on her knees. She’s so damn beautiful.

Mariana tilts her head, questioning. “If you don’t want to…”

“This is probably the least sexy thing I can say right now, but even Juan Carlos didn’t do...that, or hadn’t in ages.” It’s hard to admit, but her self-confidence has taken a hit, even before the affair(s). Giving herself over to someone like that again? Ana feels her veins thrum with anxiety.

But then her words echo back to her, about trust and how maybe being with someone you know can make the insecurities fall away. And Ana knows Mariana loves her, the depth at which she feels the same wide and endless. 

“I’ll take good care of you,” Mariana assures and Ana feels endeared to the woman evermore. She lets a hand traverse Ana’s bare body, curling her fingers around Ana’s neck. “Ana, I’d do anything for you.”

It’s so genuine and earnest and then Mariana is leaning in again to taste Ana’s lips and how much more of this pounding against her heart with emotion can she take? Ana’s been swimming in the idea of the two of them together for two months, has been wanting to just have Mariana touch her pretty much every second since that first initial and unasked for hug. 

That’s the moment it all changed, when Ana liked being held so close with joy filling someone else up that she never wanted it to end. Now, Mariana is asking to create more moments with delight. 

“Okay,” Ana finally blurts and then covers her hand with her eyes as she falls back into the sheets. She hears a small chuckle, feels Mariana moving away. 

She becomes a new woman the second Mariana touches her. There is the Ana before, the wonderer, the curious but closed-off woman, and the Ana after, the seeker and encourager, the one that places a hand on the back of her new lover’s head and urges her along. 

“What’s it like?” Ana’s bold mouth forms the question, a lofty and breathed-out thing. Below her, a hum. She feels the vibrations against her.

“Bliss,” Mariana finally answers. “You’re perfect.”

Ana laughs but then lets out a strangled cry. The rate at which her lungs are supplying air is sporadic, chaotic, and she knows she doesn’t have long. She doesn’t want to be a rookie but Mariana is weirdly efficient for never having done this. 

“Is this okay? Tell me what I need to do,” Mariana seeks to please. 

Ana lets a curse word slip. “Fuck,” she sighs on a sweet spot. Shakes her head to rid her mouth of the word. “You’re doing great, amazing even.” Mariana does something nice, something swoon-worthy if Ana weren’t already at her mercy. “More of that,” Ana encourages too. 

Soon, they’re both sweat-slicked and clinging to one another. Ana can’t believe this is her life, that this is their love story. Almost forty years of going through the motions. This feels like being cracked open and being alive. Even more so when she’s completely falling apart and only Mariana is there to hold her through it. 

Against Mariana’s chest, a thought dislodges in the aftermath of their coupling. “I don’t know much of who I am anymore,” Ana whispers as she lays her ear against the beating of Mariana’s heart. She glances up to see Mariana’s clouded expression, so Ana works to reassure her. “Maybe it’s a good thing. I didn’t change for so long. Maybe life sent me what I needed to challenge me, make me see another way to live.” 

For a while, nothing is said. It’s just Ana and Mariana and their bodies entwined in each other, beads of perspiration drying from their activities. After a while, Mariana leans her head against the top of Ana’s, pulls her tighter. 

“I picked the worst time to tell you,” Mariana mutters. 

Ana knows what she’s talking about. The christening. Ana begins to shake her head. “Perhaps it was the perfect time,” she says quietly. “Maybe I needed to fall apart to learn I was never put together as well as I thought anyway.”

“Ana,” Mariana holds her tighter still, but then Ana works to maneuver them another way. 

They both roll to their sides, facing each other. Ana brushes her hand through Mariana’s hair. There’s still a youthfulness in her that Ana will never be able to capture herself again. Unless this is her second wind, the life she could have lived when she was younger but never knew was available to live. 

Mariana has risen to hover over Ana now, her hands always so tender across Ana’s body. _This is how touch is supposed to be_ , Ana thinks. 

“Mariana, I feel the same way,” she tells her as she looks into her chocolate eyes. Her own hand glides down the curvature of Mariana’s back, up and down, back and forth. Mariana’s face is pensive. Ana grins, spins, and flips them so that she is on top. She nuzzles her nose and smiles. “Somewhere along the way, with raising our babies together, I’ve fallen in love with you too.”

It feels so good to speak again, especially after the way the words had been received the first time. The world seems open, possible. Ana doesn’t know how this works out, only that she wants it to.

“Tell me we are going to be alright,” Ana implores. “You and me and our girls.”

Mariana looks thoughtful, resolute. “Our life is what we make it, Ana.”

“Well, then.” Ana kisses her, a promise in and of itself. "Let's make it amazing." After, she holds onto her and lets serenity flow. She plans to make the future as beautiful as the woman in her arms.


End file.
